The Range Dwellers eBook

CHAPTER I.

The Reward of Folly.

I’m something like the old maid you read about—­the
one who always knows all about babies and just how
to bring them up to righteous maturity; I’ve
got a mighty strong conviction that I know heaps that
my dad never thought of about the proper training
for a healthy male human. I don’t suppose
I’ll ever have a chance to demonstrate my wisdom,
but, if I do, there are a few things that won’t
happen to my boy.

If I’ve got a comfortable wad of my own, the
boy shall have his fun without any nagging, so long
as he keeps clean and honest. He shall go to
any college he may choose—­and right here
is where my wisdom will sit up and get busy.
If I’m fool enough to let that kid have more
money than is healthy for him, and if I go to sleep
while he’s wising up to the art of making it
fade away without leaving anything behind to tell the
tale, and learning a lot of habits that aren’t
doing him any good, I won’t come down on him
with both feet and tell him all the different brands
of fool he’s been, and mourn because the Lord
in His mercy laid upon me this burden of an unregenerate
son. I shall try and remember that he’s
the son of his father, and not expect too much of
him. It’s long odds I shall find points
of resemblance a-plenty between us—­and the
more cussedness he develops, the more I shall see
myself in him reflected.

I don’t mean to be hard on dad. He was
always good to me, in his way. He’s got
more things than a son to look after, and as that son
is supposed to have a normal allowance of gray matter
and is no physical weakling, he probably took it for
granted that the son could look after himself—­which
the mines and railroads and ranches that represent
his millions can’t.

But it wasn’t giving me a square deal.
He gave me an allowance and paid my debts besides,
and let me amble through school at my own gait—­which
wasn’t exactly slow—­and afterward
let me go. If I do say it, I had lived a fairly
decent sort of life. I belonged to some good clubs—­athletic,
mostly—­and trained regularly, and was called
a fair boxer among the amateurs. I could tell
to a glass—­after a lot of practise—­just
how much of ’steen different brands I could
take without getting foolish, and I could play poker
and win once in awhile. I had a steam-yacht and
a motor of my own, and it was generally stripped to
racing trim. And I wasn’t tangled up with
any women; actress-worship had never appealed to me.
My tastes all went to the sporting side of life and
left women to the fellows with less nerve and more
sentiment.

So I had lived for twenty-five years—­just
having the best time a fellow with an unlimited resource
can have, if he is healthy.

It was then, on my twenty-fifth birthday, that I walked
into dad’s private library with a sonly smile,
ready for the good wishes and the check that I was
in the habit of getting—­I’d been unlucky,
and Lord knows I needed it!—­and what does
the dear man do?